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Prompt Kits

Build a Menu & Venue Site

Someone looking up a restaurant or café wants three things fast: what's on the menu, whether you're open, and where you are. Most venue sites fail at exactly these, usually with a menu trapped in a PDF and hours that are wrong. This kit builds a site that gets the basics right and stays right — because the owner can edit it — then adds reservations or online ordering only if the venue needs them, as later steps rather than assumptions.

Project type: Menu & venue site Difficulty: Beginner Time: 1 day Works with: Base44 / Lovable / v0

What you'll have at the end

  • A site that shows your menu, hours and location the moment someone lands
  • A menu you edit yourself, with sections, prices, and labels for vegetarian, vegan, spicy or allergens
  • Accurate opening hours, including special hours for holidays, that show whether you're open right now
  • Your location with a map, directions, parking and contact details
  • Optional table reservations that reach you and that you confirm
  • Optional online ordering for pickup or delivery, if that fits your venue
  • An owner screen where the menu, hours and details are yours to change without a developer

Before you start

  • Your menu, current and complete — sections, item names, descriptions, prices, and which items are vegetarian, vegan, spicy or contain common allergens. This is the heart of the site; have it ready and accurate.
  • Your real hours, including how they differ on weekends and holidays, and whether the kitchen closes before the venue does.
  • Your exact location — address, and how people find you (parking, which entrance, landmarks for a food truck that moves).
  • Real photos of your actual food and space if you have them. Improving your own photos — lighting, colour, crop — is fine; what you must never do is show an AI-generated dish, because a picture of food that does not match the real plate misleads the exact people deciding where to eat and destroys trust the moment they arrive. Labelled placeholders until you have real photos.
  • A decision on reservations and ordering: do you want either, and if ordering, pickup only or delivery too. You can launch with neither and add them later; do not build them because they exist.

Which platform suits this

Base44 is the smoothest fit: the editable menu, hours and reservation workflow can live in one managed app you control from your phone, with ordering dependent on the provider you choose. Lovable handles this well through Lovable Cloud or optional Supabase and gives you code ownership if you want it. v0 can build the full-stack menu, reservation and ordering logic and deploy it to Vercel, but storage, payments, messaging and any POS connection remain provider-backed choices that require setup and testing. On any platform, if you need full delivery-fleet logistics, table-management systems or deep POS integration, use a dedicated hospitality product—this kit is for a venue that wants a site it controls, not a restaurant operating system. If all you need is menu, hours and location, you can stop after step 2.

Start with the first prompt on a free plan. Extra usage and some connected services may cost more as you build out the project.

Build it on

Start free with Base44Read Review: Base44
Start free with LovableRead Review: Lovable
Start free with v0Read Review: v0 by Vercel

How we make money

The steps

1

Build the site and get the basics visible

When to use this

Start here, in a brand-new project.

The three things people came for — menu, hours, location — visible immediately, with no ordering yet.

The prompt

Build a website for [VENUE NAME], a [TYPE, e.g. neighbourhood Italian restaurant / speciality coffee shop / street food truck] in [LOCATION].

Pages: a home page that immediately shows what kind of place this is, whether you're open, and where you are, with clear buttons to the menu and directions; a menu page; an about page telling your story; and a contact/find-us page with address, map, hours and phone.

On the home page, high and visible without scrolling: the venue name and type, today's status of open or closed with today's hours, the location, and a button to the full menu. Below that, a taste of the place with a few highlight dishes and space for photos.

Show your opening hours clearly, and work out from them whether you are open right now, so the home page can say "Open now" or "Closed — opens at [time]" correctly for the current day.

Add your location with an embedded map, the full address, directions help using [PARKING / ENTRANCE / LANDMARK NOTES], and for a moving venue like a food truck, a clear place for me to post where you are today.

Design: [THREE ADJECTIVES, e.g. warm, appetising, casual]. Colors: [YOUR COLORS]. It must be excellent on a phone, because nearly everyone checks a food place on one. Use labelled image placeholders saying [REAL PHOTO OF YOUR FOOD/SPACE NEEDED] — do not use stock photography and never generate images of food, dishes or the venue from scratch. Real photos of my own food that I have edited myself are welcome; only invented or generated dishes are the problem, because they misrepresent what a diner will actually be served.

Do not build the editable menu system or ordering yet — the menu can be simple placeholder content for now.

Check it worked

  • The home page shows the venue type, today's open/closed status, and location without scrolling
  • "Open now" or "Closed" reflects the real current day and time
  • The location shows on a map with directions
  • The menu and directions buttons work
  • It looks genuinely appetising and correct on a phone
  • Every image is either your own real photo (editing it yourself is fine) or a labelled placeholder — never an AI-generated dish

You'll know it worked when:

A stranger nearby can tell in seconds what you serve, whether you're open, and how to reach you.

Watch out for

The "open now" logic is where these sites quietly break — a hardcoded status goes stale the first holiday. Make sure it is calculated from your hours, not typed in. And never let the builder generate food images; AI food looks wrong to hungry people in a way that makes them distrust the whole venue.

2

Build the menu you can edit yourself

When to use this

Once the site basics look right. This is the part people actually came for.

A proper menu you control, never a PDF, with the labels diners need.

The prompt

Build an editable menu system for this venue, replacing the placeholder menu.

Store the menu as data I edit from a private owner screen — never as an uploaded PDF or an image, because those are unreadable on phones and I cannot keep them current. The menu has sections [YOUR SECTIONS, e.g. starters, mains, drinks, desserts]. Each item has a name, a description, a price, and optional labels for vegetarian, vegan, spicy, and common allergens.

Let me mark an item as unavailable so it shows as sold out or hides, and mark items as specials or chef's picks that stand out.

On the menu page, show sections clearly with the labels visible, make it fast and easy to read on a phone, and let a visitor jump to a section quickly.

Add an owner screen where I add, edit, reorder and remove items and sections myself, and change a price in seconds without touching anything else.

Keep the home page, hours and location working exactly as they are, and have the home page's highlight dishes pull from real menu items I mark as highlights.

Check it worked

  • The full menu shows with sections, prices and dietary labels
  • Editing an item on the owner screen changes the public menu immediately
  • Marking an item unavailable removes or greys it out for visitors
  • The menu is fast and comfortable to read on a phone, with no PDF
  • Home page highlights reflect items you actually marked as highlights

You'll know it worked when:

You changed a price and marked one item sold out from the owner screen, and both showed on the public menu straight away.

Watch out for

The single biggest mistake in venue sites is a menu as a PDF or photo — it is unreadable on a phone, kills your search visibility because the text is invisible to Google, and goes stale because updating it is a chore. Insist on menu-as-data. It is the difference between a site people use and one they leave.

3

Get the hours and location genuinely right

When to use this

After the menu works.

The details people act on, correct and current — including holidays and the venue found easily.

The prompt

Improve the hours and location handling for this venue.

Let me set regular weekly hours and separate special hours for specific dates like holidays, from a private owner screen. The "open now" status must respect special hours, so a holiday closure shows correctly without me editing code. If the kitchen closes before the venue, show both clearly.

Show the week's hours plainly, with today highlighted, and if you're closing soon show a gentle "closing in [time]" note.

Improve finding the venue: the map, written directions, parking and public-transport notes, and the nearest cross-streets. For a food truck or pop-up, give me a simple way to post today's location and hours that shows prominently on the home page and is easy to update from my phone.

Add the venue's structured information for search engines — name, type of food, address, hours, price level and phone — so it can appear correctly in search and map results.

Keep the menu and everything else working exactly as they are.

Check it worked

  • Setting a holiday closure makes "open now" show closed on that date without any code change
  • The week's hours display with today highlighted
  • Directions, parking and transport notes help a first-time visitor arrive
  • A moving venue can post today's location and it shows prominently
  • The venue's details are marked up for search and map results

You'll know it worked when:

You set a holiday closure for a future date and confirmed the site will show closed then, while showing open today.

Watch out for

Wrong hours are worse than no hours — someone who drives to a closed venue does not come back, and they leave the review that says so. Test the holiday logic by setting a closure and checking the status flips on that date. The search markup matters more here than almost anywhere: "restaurants near me" and map results are how food venues are found.

4

Add reservations (optional)

When to use this

Only if you take table bookings. Skip entirely for a counter, takeaway or truck.

Let guests request a table, that you confirm, without a complicated booking system.

The prompt

Add table reservations to this venue site, alongside everything already built.

A guest requests a table with [DATE, TIME, PARTY SIZE, NAME, CONTACT, ANY NOTES]. Only offer times within my opening hours, and let me set how far ahead people can book and the largest party size the site accepts before it asks them to call instead.

I confirm reservations myself — do not auto-confirm beyond [ANY CAPACITY YOU'RE COMFORTABLE AUTO-ACCEPTING, or say confirm all manually] — because tables depend on the night. Show requests in my owner view, let me confirm, change or decline, and send the guest a short message either way.

Send me a notification for each new request and send the guest a confirmation when I accept.

Keep the menu, hours and everything else working exactly as they are.

Check it worked

  • A guest can request a table only for a time you're actually open
  • Party sizes above your limit are directed to call instead
  • Requests appear in your owner view for you to confirm, change or decline
  • The guest is notified either way, and you're notified of every request
  • Nothing else on the site changed

You'll know it worked when:

A test reservation request that reached your owner view, that you confirmed, and that notified the guest.

Watch out for

Do not auto-confirm every reservation up to capacity — a real dining room juggles table sizes, timings and turnover that a simple form cannot see. Manual confirmation is safer until you understand your own patterns. For serious volume, a dedicated reservations product will beat this step.

5

Add online ordering (optional)

When to use this

Only if you want pickup or delivery orders. Skip for a dine-in-only venue.

Take orders for pickup or delivery without handing a third party your margin — if it fits your venue.

The prompt

Add online ordering to this venue site for [PICKUP ONLY / PICKUP AND DELIVERY], using [PAYMENT PROVIDER, e.g. Stripe] in test mode.

Customers order from the existing menu — reuse it, do not build a second menu. They choose items, see a running total, and pay on the provider's own secure page. Never handle or store card details on my site.

For pickup, let the customer choose a pickup time within my opening hours and show a realistic prepare time. For delivery, collect the address, check it is within [MY DELIVERY AREA], and add [MY DELIVERY FEE OR RULE]. Let me turn ordering off instantly when we're too busy or closing, with a clear message, so orders never arrive when I can't cook them.

When an order is placed and paid, create an order record, notify me immediately with the items and the pickup or delivery details, and confirm to the customer with a time. Mark items sold out from the menu and have them unavailable to order.

Show me an orders screen with each order's items, time and status, and tell me what I must do in the payment provider's dashboard, including where my secret key goes.

Keep the menu, reservations, hours and everything else working exactly as they are.

Check it worked

  • A customer can order from your real menu and pay with the provider's test card
  • Pickup times and any delivery area and fee apply correctly
  • Turning ordering off immediately stops new orders with a clear message
  • A paid order notifies you with items and pickup/delivery details, and confirms a time to the customer
  • Sold-out items can't be ordered
  • Orders appear in your owner screen with their status

You'll know it worked when:

A full test order — placed, paid with a test card, received in your owner screen with the right details — and an "ordering off" switch that genuinely stops new orders.

Watch out for

Switch to live payment keys and place one real order to yourself before announcing ordering, then refund it. And build the instant "ordering off" switch before you take a single real order — the worst failure here is orders arriving during a rush you cannot fulfil, which turns a convenience into angry customers. If ordering is central to your business rather than a convenience, weigh a dedicated ordering platform against this step.

Going live

  • Replace every food and venue image placeholder with real photos — never generated food, never stock
  • Enter your complete, current menu with correct prices and dietary labels
  • Confirm regular hours and add any known holiday closures, then check "open now" behaves correctly
  • Verify your address, map pin and directions by actually following them
  • If you enabled reservations or ordering, test each end to end, and for ordering switch to live keys and place one real order, then refund it
  • Confirm the search markup by checking how the venue appears in a search preview tool
  • Add a privacy note for any details you collect via reservations or orders (see the legal pages prompt)
  • Connect your custom domain and check the padlock appears

Spend fewer credits

Every builder charges you for the work its AI does — so the cheapest habit is thinking before you build. These six rules cut most of the waste, whichever platform you choose.

  1. Plan in a free chat first. Sketch the whole thing in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini — pages, features, what each form collects, what it should look like. Thinking there is free; thinking inside a builder is billed.
  2. Start from a written prompt, not a sentence. "Make me a website" is the most expensive sentence in AI building. A complete first prompt — like the ones on this site — saves dozens of correction rounds.
  3. Don't be lazy with the details. Every detail you leave out comes back as a correction you pay for. Business name, colors, every page, every form field, what happens after someone submits — put it all in the first prompt.
  4. One change per message afterwards. "Fix the header, and the form, and the colors" produces a tangle that costs more to unpick than it saved.
  5. Stuck? Stop patching. If the same fix fails about three times, don't send a fourth correction — describe the whole section's desired end state in one fresh message instead.
  6. Start free. Upgrade when you need more. Use the free allowance to build and explore your first version. Upgrade when you need more usage or paid features, and check any connected service costs before launch.

The prompts on this page are written to do most of this work for you — that's the point of them.

Read the full guide

Last reviewed: 2026-08-27

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